Zofia Kulik

i Upowszechniania (PDDiU – Action, Documentation, and Distribution Workshop). It was devoted to collecting documents associated with the neo-avantgarde movement. 1987 saw Kulik discontinue her work together with Kwiek in order to focus on her individual practice, which is based on black-and-white photomontages composed of hundreds of elements. The artist worked with models (mainly by Zbigniew Libera, but also by Robert Rumas and others) to create a vocabulary of gestures and poses that became an important aspect of her ornate compositions based on the multiplication of the human figure and of ornamental motifs. The structures of these works are also based on such forms as oriental carpets and medieval stained glass. The naked body of the disciplined male is thus juxtaposed with the symbols of totalitarian power. In her practice as an individual, the artist moved from research on Open Form to an investigation of the political and disciplinary entanglement of closed forms. The latter was symbolized by things such as the silhouette of the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. The resulting works explored the relationship between power and the individual as mediated by the language of propaganda. In 2000, Kulik began working on the archive of PDDiU and KwieKulik. Her engagement with this material has allowed for new readings of and approaches to understanding the collaborative projects of this duo. D.M.